Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Myst

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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 22:29, 14 May 2008.

Myst[edit]

Well, on the 2nd I noticed this article was in need of a cleaning, so I started in on it. I was having issues finding good sources, (as I haven't been able to find hard copies of newspaper articles without paying for it (capitalist swine!) but I was still able to find some good reviews and such from Salon and a few of the magazines of the time. (I'm nom'ing this 'cause my other nom has stalled, and it's a video game again, deal with it, I'll do something different when I do something different.) Cheers, --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Sometimes you write The Stranger capitalized and linked, sometimes the Stranger with only the "Stranger" part linked. Be consistent.
  • There's a few contractions I spotted; I'm not sure if there are more, but try to weed those out.
  • Why is this a reliable source? Couldn't this be cited to the original NYTimes article?
  • Perhaps you could expand the short subsections of "Remakes and rereleases"?
  • Some redudancy; for example: "Exile was not developed by Cyan; instead, Presto Studios developed the title and Ubisoft published it."
  • "The game's popularity has led to a significant cultural impact." - source? Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 02:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I've fixed all the issues with 'the Stranger', and all contractions I saw besides those in quotes have been fixes. The source in question is from Salon, which I believe fits WP:RS criteria as have a staff and a reputation for fact-checking. The NYT article is off the net. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Otherwise the sources look good. Ealdgyth - Talk 03:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
World village link is being used for an interview. SNPP link is written by David Basner, who is a Writer/Associate Producer at MTV. Steve West is Cinemablend's games editor, I'm going to see if he's been published elsewhere. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What makes World village a reliable site for interviews though? Ealdgyth - Talk 01:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please attribute the two statements (not the quote) sourced to worldvillage.com so the reader can decide how reliable the statements are. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All the refs for the worldvillage are based entirely on the Miller Brother's comments, not what the author or interviewers are, although they aren't quotes. Are you sure they need special distinction? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some minor fixes needed, will support then. No obvious prose hickups, balance is good, relevant images with proper FU rationales (except for Image:RealMyst Box.jpg, where I am neutral on whether it is really needed.) To be fixed:

  • The "(The) Stranger" linking and the contractions like already expressed above
  • The "Story" section doesn't divide when the story is told in a video (i.e. the player is passive), and when the played takes over the part of the Stranger (i.e. the player is active). But I think this should be made clearer (even though part of it is already explained in the "Gameplay" section).
  • "A lot can be done with texture. . . ." - I bet the three/four dots should be unspaced.
  • Myst: The Soundtrack -> Myst: The Soundtrack
  • The "Reception" begins with the words "extremely popular". While the following sentences support this claim, it should be reconsidered to lower "extremely" to "very" for POV reasons. This may be just my personal opinion, so if you do not share it, ignore it.
– sgeureka t•c 10:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fixes above implemented. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. – sgeureka t•c 20:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Issues resolved — Wackymacs (talk) 08:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - It's great to see this at FAC, because this was one of my favorite games, but some changes are needed until I can support:

  • In the lead, you say "... and distributed by Brøderbund (among others)." - Clarify the others instead of being ambiguous - You should not assume the reader will look at the infobox. For example, "... and distributed by Brøderbund, and later Midway Games, Mean Hamster Software, and Sunsoft".
  • In the Story section, "Under obscure circumstances, a mysterious person known as the Stranger finds an unusual book titled "Myst"." Under what obscure circumstances? Needs clarification.
  • No citation for "Each image was edited and enhanced using Photoshop 1.0." (In Development section)
  • Why is Hypercard in Italics? (In 4th paragraph of Development section)
  • Have you considered citing the Story section?
  • In some places, you say Myst, in others, its just Myst. So which is it?
  • No citation for "At first, the developers had no idea how they would actually create the physical terrain for the Ages." (In Development section)
  • "Myst was an extremely popular and commercially successful game." Remove "extremely" - slight POV.
  • "Myst still received criticism of some aspects" Prose - consider instead: "Some aspects of Myst still received criticism."
  • No citation for "In addition to the main Myst saga, Cyan developed Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, which was released on November 11, 2003."
  • Nice work so far.

— Wackymacs (talk) 11:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the Myst-Myst thing: "Myst" refers to the island in the game, not the game itself. I'll prolly reword those occurrences to "Myst Island" to increase understandibility. I'll get hopping on the above, thanks for the review! Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 14:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I've fixed all the rest of the above issues; the manual backstory has been explicitly stated, cited the pieces in question, removed POV and fixed grammar. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Almost there. There is still no consistency with the name formatting. For example, in the development section, you have "The Myst creative team consisted of the brothers...", but later on you have "The original Macintosh version of Myst was constructed in Hypercard." And both of those seem to be talking about the game itself, not the island. So why suddenly Italics? You need to go through the entire article and check. I still like your previous suggestion to change those occurrences to "Myst Island". — Wackymacs (talk) 19:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you add references for the release dates and age ratings in the Infobox? (I have had a look at some video game FAs, and they all do the same). — Wackymacs (talk) 21:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Release dates and rating ref'd in the infobox. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support — Wackymacs (talk) 08:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Gary King (talk · contribs)
  • Comment The scores in the reviews box need references. Gary King (talk) 20:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
added. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 11:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are the publishers for all of the references italicized? Gary King (talk) 16:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is quite a mess in the FAC, article name, and FAC templating here; please sort it out, remove all the redirects, put the FAC to the correct page and article title, since I don't have admin tools to fix it all. What is the article title? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Will someone decide if that's the name, so we can correct the nom and the redirects? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No response, so I'm going to begin to try to correct this myself SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Corrected with a cut-and-paste since I can't move over a redirect. The FAC is now at Myst, where the article is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, Where did you get the release date for the Masterpiece Edition? Your ref says it was released 2000 instead of 1996. Also every other site I checked list the release date as 1999 (GameSpot, IGN, MobyGames), so which one is correct? --Mika1h (talk) 13:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The ref to the release date (5/2000) is from Ubisoft's product page.[1] Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 19:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Well written and referenced, but I do have a couple of observations. The remakes section consists of rather small subsections. I was wondering whether it might be better to merge those subsections into two subheadings, something like "PC remakes" and "Handheld versions". The second thing is that I personally think that a comparison shot of a scene in Myst and the same scene in realMyst may be more useful to readers than just the box art. Just a couple of thoughts, but it all comes together rather well regardless. -- Sabre (talk) 20:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Images not checked, reliable sources not yet resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Checked images; most of them are free as Ubisoft screenshots. The box cover has a decent rationale, as does the Simpsons image. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The three images are now on Commons as Attribution-Ubisoft. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 11:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved issues from Maralia (talk) 21:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments I've copyedited this just now (and for the record, it was a hell of a lot easier since I actually know this game). Some remaining issues:

  • "The graphics were shots of fully rendered rooms, to the result of 2,500 frames in the game, one for each possible area the player could explore." - 'to the result of' is weak. There are only 2,500 frames in the whole game?
  • "This careful processing made the finished graphics look like truecolor images despite their low bit depth and space-saving; the stills went from being around 500 KB in size to around 80 KB." - 'despite their...space-saving' reads as though there's a missing noun. The second half of the sentence would benefit from a better verb (were reduced?).
  • "Available only in Europe in December 2007, this new version of Myst for the Nintendo DS promises" - a couple issues: it wasn't available only in Europe in December but rather since December, right? And why the future tense verb for something already in existence?
  • "Entertainment Weekly reported that some players considered Myst's options of choice an exercise in "virtual morality"." - options of choice?
  • "Writing about Myst's reception, Greg M. Smith noted the perplexing response that" - the lead-in to this quote is really wonky.
  • "Unlike most games in the Myst series, players can customize their avatars, and the graphics are rendered in real-time." - misplaced modifier; clarify this with something like 'Uru allows/offers customizable...'
  • The site under external links piped to "Information about the availability of CD soundtracks from the Myst series" stinks strongly of a click-through sales deal with Amazon.

Maralia (talk) 04:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • My problem with 'options of choice' wasn't singular vs plural - it was that the two words are entirely interchangeable and I thought we could come up with something better. I just went to the EW article in hopes of inspiration, but found that the only 'virtual morality' mention is this sentence: "Self-described Christians who initially conceived Myst as an exercise in virtual morality, the brothers never dreamed so many people would find their fictional world a religious experience." Unless I'm missing something here, that 'virtual morality' reference definitely refers to the Miller brothers' perception, not that of players.
  • Is there a typo in the new MacWorld quote? "vocabularies that don't understand you,"
Maralia (talk) 21:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support My concerns have been addressed. I changed the template used to stack the old/new stills, and split the caption which compares them. I feel pretty strongly about the stack method - the edge of one image smashed against the edge of another was visually disturbing - but I wouldn't argue if you prefer the single caption to my split one. Maralia (talk) 15:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still waiting for reliable sources to be resolved and images to be reviewed (pls ask Elcobbola (talk · contribs) or Black Kite (talk · contribs)). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:19, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'll leave a note with Elco, (you already have) and I've already left a message for Ealdgyth[2] (appears to be travelling so it may take some time.) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Source observations/comments:
        • Cinemablend has been replaced.
        • Do we really even need to cite the appearance in the Simpsons (the questionable David Basner source)? It doesn't seem likely to be challenged. Failing that, would citing the Simpsons DVD on which the episode appears, for example, be acceptable?
        • World village is indeed on the line. However, given the relatively advanced age of Myst (especially for a video game ... and no pun intended) and in the absence of evidence that the information exists elsewhere, I'm not sure that there is a reasonable expectation that it can be resourced. Removing the information would probably be detrimently, so I'm okay with it (acknowledging, of course, that stricter interpretations have merit). I do note that Kadrey, Richard (1997). From Myst to Riven. Hyperion Books ISBN 9780786863655 appears to address development in detail; has it been consulted? ЭLСОВВОLД talk 22:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm looking for a copy of From Myst to Riven because I do want to use it for Riven at least, but I don't think it has much on Myst itself- it's more about the fallout from the game becoming a hit, to th development of Riven. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 11:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Image:Simpsons-Myst.png appears purely decorative. Why is seeing an "aspect of the game replicated in pop culture" necessary (NFCC#3A) to understand Myst and is any contribution truly significant (NFCC#8)? Isn't "Elements from Myst made appearances in an episode of the The Simpsons" good enough (NFCC#1)? The {{Non-free television screenshot}} only allows for the illustration of critical commentary of the image's contents. A single sentence (used merely as a example of a cultural occurrence) -- in an article unrelated to the episode or The Simpsons as a series, nonetheless -- does not appear to constitute critical commentary. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 02:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Removed image. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 11:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional support: Finally Herr Fuchs brings a game I've played. (Oh sweet nostalgia of when CD-ROM drives used a caddy; has it really been 15 years?) A few prose tweaks seem needed:
    • "Myst was generally critically praised" seems awkward; "was generally praised by critics" would seem preferable.
    • "Edge stated the obvious flaw..."; this seems to be OR?
    • "Some critics complained ..." WP:WEASEL; the preceding sentences do a good job of identifying the source of comments. Why doesn't this follow suit; which critics?
    • "The Miller brothers also collaborated..."; use of "also" seems to be an "additive term", on which Tony might frown (I'm not a prose guy, but going over once more to check for this sort of thing might be helpful). ЭLСОВВОLД talk 15:30, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've reworded the above, clarified who was saying what, and swapped around the Edge comment- they stated the flaw was "obvious", but it didn't come off clear in my writing. Speak for yourself about 15 years: I got the hand-me-down computers in my house, and I was rockin' the 2x speed CD caddy until 1998! :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 20:19, 13 May 2008 (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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