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Ask the Tropers:
Questionable Pokémon Ensemble Darkhorse Removal Videogame
So, on EnsembleDarkhorse.Pokemon, ronis~ removed Tinkaton because, to directly quote the edit reason, "Much like Palafin, Tinkaton's more of a Base-Breaking Character than a full-on Darkhorse." This is literally the first time I have heard about her being base breaking in my life. Tinkaton is arguably one of Pokémon's biggest darkhorses, to the point that it's starting to approach Breakout Character given that it has achieved merch much quicker than it would have otherwise as an unannounced-prior-to-release random Fairy/Steel type. There is an entire article about Tinkaton on The Other Wiki that mostly exists to point out the unexpected popularity of the species. The closest thing to "base breaking" about Tinkaton that I have heard is criticism of her low Attack stat, which I wouldn't call a disqualifier. Permission to restore?
"Nightmare of Druaga" work page misnamed? Videogame
I noticed that the work page "Nightmare of Druaga" shows the English cover as "The Nightmare of Druaga". Should all the related pages be moved to the correct name?
Gushing edit revert in an article Videogame
Recently, I cleaned up gushing in multiple articles discussed in this thread. One of them, VideoGame.Street Fighter II, was reverted by an editor who added back the gushing and claimed "no agreement was ever reached" although I cited the thread in edit reason. I sent a DM pointing to the thread a week ago but there's no response. What's the next option?
Possible agenda-based edit Videogame
This morning Tropers.Chucknorris 40 reworded a Memetic Mutation entry on YMMV.Starfield from this:
- "FUCKIN' PRONOUNS! FUCKIN' GENDER AMBIGUITY! FUCKIN' CURRENT DAY CALIFORNIAN SHIT!" Explanation A line from a now-infamous video of Youtuber "Heels Vs Babyface" throwing a tantrum about the gender options in the start of the game.
to this:
- "FUCKIN' PRONOUNS! FUCKIN' GENDER AMBIGUITY! FUCKIN' CURRENT DAY CALIFORNIAN SHIT!" Explanation A line from a now-viral video of Youtuber "Heels Vs Babyface" ranting about the preferred pronoun options in the start of the game.
with the following edit reason:
The edit reason raised my eyebrow since I've seen the video in question and reactions to it from both sides of the political spectrum, and while I can understand that the original phrasing may not have been the most neutral, I don't think "tantrum" is by any means a controversial or subjective assessment of it — even the people I've seen sympathize with points that were raised in the rant have mostly expressed secondhand embarrassment at how explosively, childishly over-the-top it was.
Again, avoiding potentially inflammatory language I understand, but this feels almost like an attempt to sanitize our description of the rant to make its talking points sound more reasoned and valid. That said, Chucknorris 40 has a pretty short and sporadic edit history, so it's hard for me to say if there's any pattern or precedent here — this could be an innocent one-off thing.
Edited by Dirtyblue929Rewriting Walkthrough Mode Page Videogame
Here's the summary of Walkthrough Mode:
For example, let's say Alice adds the Puppy Stomper 3000 to That One Boss. Bob follows this up by stating, "Actually, the Puppy Stomper isn't tough if you have the Ring of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to do X, Y and Z." Then Clara comes by and adds, "To be fair, you need Sven in your party to use the Ring of Puppy Protection. It's easier to use the Stick of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to bring the Ring of Puppy Protection to the Ring Transumation Fairy in Scary Town."
Using the example from the above paragraph, here's what it looks like on a page.
- That One Boss: Puppy Stomper 3000 is hard because of blah blah.
- Actually, the Puppy Stomper isn't tough if you have the Ring of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to do X, Y and Z.
- To be fair, you need Sven in your party to use the Ring of Puppy Protection. It's easier to use the Stick of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to bring the Ring of Puppy Protection to the Ring Transumation Fairy in Scary Town.
- Actually, the Puppy Stomper isn't tough if you have the Ring of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to do X, Y and Z.
The first two paragraphs basically describe a videogame mechanics-themed version of Thread Mode, which... editors shouldn't do either, but if all the page has to say is "don't thread mode about game mechanics", it probably doesn't need to exist — just point to Thread Mode instead.
To my understanding, what Walkthrough Mode should tell readers is that they should avoid cluttering examples with numbers, niche mechanics, and long-winded guides that are only tangentially relevant to how there is an example of a trope — this is suggested to me by that last paragraph. Here's a version I think could work, which emphasizes that:
For example, let's say Alice lists the Puppy Stompertron as an example of That One Boss, engaging in Walkthrough Mode to do so:
- That One Boss: The Puppy Stompertron appears at the end of the Puppy Factory and presents a massive roadblock to the player. It's got a massive 70,000 HP health bar (by the end of the factory, you'll be dealing 300 DPS at best), has immunity to Bleed, Stun, Dizzy, Confuse, and Love, and all of its attacks are That One Attack. Puppy Squishing deals 10,000 damage and can only be survived with the Anti-Ten Thousand Medal from the Numbers Swamp, Puppy Flamethrowing is supposed to deal only 40 damage to the player once but a bug with the level geometry can cause the flames to deal 400 damage if the player's standing on the many hills around the arena, and the Dog Food Ingester will heal it back to full unless the player has done the sidequest to obtain Dog Food Poison, which is easily missable at the start of the game. The only thing that can make this easy is the Puppy Stompertron Control Device to cut its HP in half, which is only available to builds that use the Dagger of Air Vent Entry, a 37 Charisma build to take it from the Puppy Factory Foreman (you can't go with any other level of Charisma, he starts liking you too much if you do), or a glitched maximum Speed character to clip through the northeast locked door and access the room where it's stored.
As you can see, this entry is hard to read because it's loaded with tangents on whole-game strategies and numbers that mean nothing to an outsider, when all that's needed is to explain how the Puppy Stompertron boss is harder than the rest of the game. Let's see an example that does just that:
- That One Boss: The Puppy Stompertron appears at the end of the Puppy Factory and presents a massive roadblock to the player. It has massive HP for that point at the game, immunity to many of the useful status effects, and all of its attacks are That One Attack — dealing massive damage or healing itself to full. The only ways to get past it painlessly involve highly-specific strategies and/or exploiting glitches, neither of which are available to every character class.
This entry is much more succinct in stating why the Puppy Stompertron is an example of That One Boss: it has high stats, immunity to statuses, powerful attacks, and the mechanics to make it easier aren't universally applicable. By cutting out details, the example becomes easier to read and digestible, yet the non-Walkthrough Mode entry still manages to communicate key points on why the Puppy Stompertron is this trope.
As a side bonus, when talking about games that are receiving post-launch updates, avoiding exact numbers gives a degree of futureproofing. In many games, if a change needs to be made, the numbers are usually first to be adjusted, so if the Puppy Stompertron ever has its HP or damage values changed this way, the example doesn't suddenly need an update to correct those parts.
While it is understandable why Walkthrough Mode happens, wiki articles are not walkthroughs for how to beat That One Boss or That One Level. Trope examples should be generic enough that those who aren't familiar with the game can understand them, and shouldn't be cluttered with something like the exact attack strength of a weapon or helpful asides about which two of the three Superbosses can be affected by the Game-Breaker. This isn't to say that you shouldn't list your example with little to no information, which is the opposite problem; you just need to explain why your example is that of the trope in question in a way that's digestible to the average reader.
See also Word Cruft, another writing element that makes examples bloated and indigestible by adding too many unnecessary words.
Does this look good to use on the page?
Edited by PyhrrousEdit War in Characters.FateGrandOrderBerserkersAToF Videogame
- Stralsun added a Ship Tease entry (with an incorrectly indented second bullet point, but I digress)
- Fireblitz 113 removed the second bullet point, stating it was misinformation as the edit reason.
- Stralsun added it again (and still incorrectly indented), claiming that it was deleted without a reason in their edit reason to justify the readdition, seeming to ignore Fireblitz's edit reason.
- Comun partially deleted part of the entry, stating that some of it was misinformation on the lines of Fireblitz's reason.
Persona 3 Reload Videogame
Should Persona 3 Reload be moved to a separate page to VideoGame.Persona 3?
I personally think it should, as the Persona 3 page already features tropes relating to the PS2 and PSP releases of the game. There’s already a need to specify between these different versions of the game, Reload is just going to make it more confusing.
EDIT as of September 21st: We now have more details about Reload that open this discussion up again.
Reload isn't a 1-to-1 remake of Persona 3, as it features a variety of new mechanics (Some previously introduced in Persona 5) and is expanding the storyline of Persona 3 by including new events with both party members and antagonists alike. On top of that, the two works are going to be released 18 years apart - from a purely logical standpoint, it makes sense to split Reload from the original version of the game to preserve the existing Persona 3 page as relating to the plot and mechanics of the original version of the game.
It is, at the very least, on par with the modern Resident Evil remakes, all of which have pages separate to the original games.
Edited by ChrisDVQuestion about Poison Oak WMG Videogame
I noticed on YMMV.Splatoon 3 that Poison Oak Epileptic Trees is on there, even though Main.Poison Oak Epileptic Trees is a redirect to WMG.Poison Oak Epileptic Trees when you click, implying it shouldn't be on trope pages.
It's on a couple other pages too, but not a lot: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/PoisonOakEpilepticTrees
Should it be removed since it's a WMG thing? (The Splatoon page, where I first noticed it, seems more like a case of Tainted by the Preview or pre-emptive story bashing.)
Edited by lalalei2001Proper usage of Fanon/FanNickname? Videogame
I've noticed that our pages for Starfield fairly consistently refer to the unnamed and un-sobriqueted Player Character by an alleged Fan Nickname of "The Spacefarer," which their character page entry openly admits isn't at all official. The thing is, until deciding to look into it just now I'd... never seen that used outside this wiki.
I had to actively search and the only place that seems to be using it is the game's very young and very incomplete Fandom wiki. As mentioned I hadn't seen anyone use it on any social media discussions of the game prior to looking into this; googling "Starfield Spacefarer" mostly brings up handfuls of weird generic clickbait websites and a single reddit thread that doesn't even really use it in this manner (most usage of it outside the Fandom wiki seems to simply describe player characters as a whole as "spacefarers" rather than specifying the character by the proper-noun nickname of "The Spacefarer").
With that in mind, should we be using it this much? I wouldn't have thought to bring it up if this were just a Fan Nickname entry on the game's trivia page, but it seems almost like there's some active effort to promote its usage by plastering it across our pages for the game in place of "the protagonist" or "the Player Character."
Edited by Dirtyblue929Give Pokemon its own Obvious Rule Patch page? Videogame
There has been so many changes made to Pokemon that documenting the most important changes would require its own page. The Pokemon entry in the Video Games page is looking lengthy. Is it time to give that franchise its own page on rule changes?
Edited by AperturePublishingFading Afternoon Videogame
Now that the game is out and the tropes can be examined and discussed properly is it ok if I recreate the page for Fading Afternoon?
Troping bootleg game on the original work page? Videogame
~Travis 4205 recently added a section on Felix the Cat regarding the somewhat infamous Russian bootleg of the game. There are some notable changes between the real game and the bootleg, particularly the incredibly gory "Game Over" screen, so it might be tropeable, but should those tropes be included on the main work page? The entries themselves are a bit problematic too, being zero or partial-context, but my first question is whether they should be there at all.
Possible Deconstruction cleanup Videogame
I recently read the page on Tales of Arise and then I came to it's Deconstruction entry. Upon reading it I think it might be in need of some serious cleanup as some entries seem to be clear cases of trying to shoehorn stuff in, with a lot of roundabout logic and explanations to justify them when they either end up not being deconstructions at all or or otherwise. Fascist, but Inefficient entry for instance felt like an excessively explained way to say that it is basically being played straight. After having asked about it in the local forum I got directed here to take up the question.
Just wanted to take it up with you all and hear what you have to say on the matter before any action is taken as I have learned that some seem to be quite defensive with the game or if I am just seeing stuff that ain't there.
any study on how a trope is formed and morphed? Videogame
I just found this amazing website and got totally obsessed. Normally a page consists definition and explaination and some differentiation between similar tropes, followed by great amount of examples.
My question is this: is there any good source on how a trope emerged initially, transformed with time, echoeing with old myth, modern psychology and modern ideology? I know it is a lot to ask. It is just that I naturally want to know more.
Let me give an example if it makes any sense. Hive mind ~ mental fusion is prevalent in many animes and video games. Where did that come from and why are we so obsessed with merging our consciousness? Why do we always find it interesting and worth exploring in fiction?
Thanks so much and congrats on building something great here.
Image help Videogame
So yesterday I changed some of the images on Characters.Tokyo Xanadu with transparent ones from the new JP website. However, I saw that Shiori's image on Characters.Tokyo Xanadu Morimiya Academy is more blurrier than the others. I went ahead and replaced and even changed the size but it still turned out blurry. Making it more odd is that when I used the preview mode, it turned out fine.
Any possible solution to this
Adding numeral to work title Videogame
Yo, I've been wanting to make a work page for a game called CP3D, but the page displays spaces around the 3 in the title. Would preventing this require a custom title?
Edited by afroclodEdit on Stardew Valley Characters page Videogame
On Characters.Stardew Valley, James Canningauthor made an edit to this paragraph.
- All-Loving Hero: The player can potentially end up as friends with everyone in Pelican Town, from two very young children to an old wheelchair-bound ex-miner, and from a Granola Girl to a war veteran.
The word "wheelchair-bound" was chained to "wheelchair using", with the edit reason being "Fixed ableist term". Out of curiosity, is "wheelchair-bound" a contested term on this site? Its the first time I'm hearing of this. Its also Jamescanningauthor's only edit so far.
I don't think there's anything for concern here, though I'd probably correct it to wheelchair-using or cut out that part for "grumpy old ex-miner", since it probably fits the entry better.
Edited by SkylaNoivernSelf-reporting: Any evidence of an edit war here? Videogame
I'm self-reporting about if I started an Edit War in a Goddamned Bats entry of my own in the YMMV page of Diner Dash.
Back in the middle of July, I added the entry, which read as follows:
- Similarly to the Cellphone Addicts, the Cavemen in Flo Through Time make noise that drains other customers' patience, though they're pretty quick eaters and leave in no time if attended quickly, in addition to being more patient.
Then at the end of the month, Shaker Troper 2002 corrected the entry in accordance to how the Goddamned Bats in question actually behaved (unlike what I initially thought about them).
- Similarly to the Cellphone Addicts, the Cavemen in Flo Through Time make noise that drains other customers' patience, though they're pretty quick eaters and leave in no time if attended quickly. Like cellphone addicts, their own patience also drains fast as well.
A couple months later (just now), I noticed that the entry was edited, so I decided to rearrange it a bit so it looks clean and organized, without changing any of the context addressed. It currently reads like this:
- Similarly to the Cellphone Addicts, the Cavemen in Flo Through Time have a low patience of their own and make noise that drains other customers' patience, though they're also pretty fast eaters and leave in no time if attended quickly.
I know this self-report might be quite dumb, but I did it just in case there was some issue, since I didn't intend to do anything against ShakerTroper2002 nor start an Edit War in general.
Edited by Inky100
Is Majora's Mask Low Fantasy Videogame
So Majora’s Mask is listed as Low Fantasy, but as a huge Majora’s Mask fan myself, I really think it doesn’t in any way fis Low Fantasy. I’m sure it was deleted in the past, but it looks like it was added back.
The entry claims Magic is less present than other Zelda games and that the plot of Majora's mask is more grounded with realistic things.
To list how magic is ‘’extremely’’ prominent as well as how the plot and the setting are not realistic.
And I can’t find it at this moment, but in an interview, with one of the game’s writers, possibly Aonuma, he stated he added in whimsical and dream like elements into the game to offset another writer when he added scary stuff.
Make no mistake, I love Majora’s Mask, but it doesn’t seem to fit the trope at all.
Even in the Zelda series, I feel The Legend Of Zelda 1 is more Low Fantasy, though I don’t think it fits the trope either.
Edited by Monsund