Talk:Development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion/Archive 1

Archive 1

GA

The problem I see with this (ad the reason I nom'd it for AfD) is because it's too dense. Paragraph upon paragraph of text, with some kinda trivial bits thrown in (As hahnchen noted, how the booth for E3 was set up???). It's kinda reader-unfriendly. David Fuchs 14:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Dense in what sense? Geuiwogbil 14:45, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

It's just thick with detail, that the focus gets a little muddled. It's not really an issue with readability in terms of sentences, because they're grammatically correct and well-written, but just reading the article, I kind of feel... confined. Maybe some images would help, but I still think it's just a little too long under each heading. David Fuchs 15:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Give me a moment; I had to do the same thing with the parent "Development" article. Shorter paragraphs, more subheadings, more images. Geuiwogbil 15:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

How does it look now? Better? Geuiwogbil 16:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

1. The article seems well written, and follows the MoS.

2. Sources are mostly video game sites, but that is to be expected for this type of article. Some of the sources look like random people on forums or something, which may be challenged at FAC.

• I assume you refer to this bit:

Oblivion's horse armor release caused significant discord on the forums of the Internet, with gamers divided by the item's value versus its cost. "This is not a matter of it being expensive in the grand scheme of things. This is not a matter of it being a requirement to buy. It's a matter of basically spitting in the consumer's collective face," wrote one poster. "Something like horse armor is a trivial addition to the game...Bethesda should be ashamed of it." Others were more conciliatory. "I agree that small stuff like that SHOULD be free, but in this day and age it's unlikely that we'll get a lot of 'free' content. If you are into the game as much as I am, you're going to shell out the $ for downloads. Microsoft knows this...so the best we can hope for is that it will be free (unlikely) or inexpensive (as is the case here)," wrote another.[51]

• I quoted those random people on forums because a GameSpot article on the issue (Surette, Tim (2006-04-03). Oblivion horse armor now available. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2007-07-06.) quoted them. It was the reliable source doing the quoting, not me personally. I can remove them if you want, it's no big deal. Geuiwogbil 14:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

3. This article says as much about the development of this game as it is possible to say. Indeed, one of the reasons for the AFD was that there was in fact too much detail. You might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Summary style and see if you can condense anything, but it is not a huge issue for me.

4. Almost everything is from a neutral point of view. You might want to compliment the "consumer backlash" section about the downloadable packs with Bethesda's side of the story, if possible.

• There's a bit of that.

Regarding the cost of the add-on, Hines stated that Bethesda aimed for a price point that "fit". "A Theme costs 150 points. The Kameo thing was 200. We're trying to find the right spot that fits... "[62] Hines assured the press that Bethesda wasn't going to respond rashly to customer criticism. "We're not going to make any knee-jerk decisions based on it [the armor] being available for five hours. We'll see what folks think and put out a few others we have planned and figure out where to go from there." Responding to concerns as to why Oblivion's downloadable content would cost money, while Morrowind's had been free, Hines simply stated: "Different game, different approach to downloadable content and the size and scope of things we want to do, and what it takes to do them."[60] A Bethesda representative told GameSpot that future plans were still somewhat uncertain. "It's hard to tell right now until we have more stuff out, how many people want item plug-ins, versus quests or locations, and so forth. It certainly may be the case that some plug-ins will appeal to some folks and not others, but we hope we'll be able to provide a good variety so that there's something for everyone...and hopefully more than one something for everyone."[63]

• I think there's a bit more of that explanation in later sources. I'll keep developing it as things move on. Geuiwogbil 14:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

5. Recently nominated for AFD, but almost certainly will be kept. Looks pretty stable otherwise.

6. I don't particularly like fair-use images, but they are necessary here and there aren't many.

• It's been requested that I add more. I don't particularly like them either, but people don't seem to like "walls of text". ;)

In accordance with the Good Article criteria analyzed above, I have decided to pass this article. Please read over my comments, however, because the suggestions in them might be necessary for any future FA run.--Danaman5 05:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the review! I've responded to some of your comments above. I hope you don't mind, but I've broken them up in line with the numbered comments they refer to. Geuiwogbil 14:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)