Forum:Handling FFVII Remake content

Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > Handling FFVII Remake content

		06:48, March 23, 2020 (UTC) Technobliterator Talk
		Though we've had remakes of games before, Final Fantasy VII Remake is unique how different it is from the original game. I'm making this forum to discuss my ideas for how to handle differences in story and gameplay content. tl;dr Story content does not need to be split into separate pages, though {{note}} and {{cite}} can be used to mark differences. This way, we can cite VII Remake (and specifically cite the quest/chapter) if a story section we're describing only occurs in VII Remake, and use note to make notes of any differences. Gameplay content should be given separate pages, including making new location pages for radically different ones, and separating /Gameplay pages for characters. I'm currently leaning towards "/Gameplay (VII Remake)" and "/Gameplay (Final Fantasy VII)", but I'm open to changing my mind. For story content, I propose we do not separate content to separate pages. Other than causing organizational nightmares for us -- which in turn is a bad user experience for readers that will not know how to find what they're looking for -- this practice from other wikis effectively amounts to writing the same page twice. This is not really convenient for anyone, and becomes especially problematic given we now know that events from the rest of the Compilation are being referenced in the Remake. We also know that VII Remake introduces a ton of story additions, and cases where the original story is altered. I propose we make use of {{note}} and {{cite}} to point out these differences, like so: Aerith gives Cloud a flower in Sector 8. After that, she is attacked by the Watchmen of Fate. Notes Template:Notelist Citations Here, we make notes of the events that occurred in the original game, while using the most up-to-date canon as the default. For events that occur only in one release, namely, the most up-to-date release, we cite the game they came from to say "this occurs in the VII Remake at this point". This also clears up any ambiguity for someone who has only played the original and not the Remake. The same logic can be extended for other releases, such as the FFXII manga; if something occurs in the manga but not the game, the manga can be cited to say when it happens. The goal of this is to be less awkward than simply writing "In Final Fantasy VII, ... but in Final Fantasy VII Remake, ..." while putting across the same point. Though I'm open to other suggestions on this, this would be how I'd do it. For gameplay content, I propose that all gameplay pages for the original game have a different VII Remake page. For the most part, we already do this (different pages for enemies, weapons, abilities, etc.), but it becomes trickier for more lore-heavy pages like locations and characters. With locations, most of the content can be placed on the quest pages, such as those in Category:Chapters in Final Fantasy VII and Category:Quests in Final Fantasy VII Remake. However, for locations that are radically different, separate tagged pages, such as "Honey Bee Inn (Final Fantasy VII)" and "Honey Bee Inn (VII Remake)", are better (assuming they turn out as differently as it appears). Although the main difference will be gameplay content, and geography/lore may be very similar, there will be differences when it comes to development/behind the scenes content. I feel it's better to just bite the bullet on these ones specifically rather than cram content into overly large pages. With characters, /Gameplay pages should be split by game, to pages such as "/Gameplay (Final Fantasy VII)" or "/Gameplay (VII Remake)". This is because a /Gameplay page on a character is specifically supposed to serve a reader looking for gameplay information from that game, so making them scroll through a game that they don't need information for is bad user experience. With that said, I'm really open to suggestions on the names, because I'm not happy with that name either. If it were me -- and I say this as the person who proposed splitting character information to subpages to begin with -- I'd ditch the subpage naming content altogether, in favor of just "Tifa Lockhart gameplay", "Cloud Strife other appearances", and even go with "Sephiroth (Dissidia)" for simplification, but even then we'd just end up with "Tifa Lockhart gameplay (VII Remake)", which is still a fairly awkward page title. Please leave any thoughts here.

For minor differences I guess I don't mind note, but for considerable additions/removals/changes I think we need to be saying "In FFVII"/"In FFVIIR", like for the Watchmen of Fate. I'd like if we could split the story by game, but because the Compilation is technically canon to both it makes it pretty difficult. People trying to grasp the story of the original will probably want the story to be explained to them without being told Shinra did it, Sephiroth tormented, and shadows attacked.

I'd like to see us ditch these gameplay character subpages. When a character appears as a boss we just make a "[boss name] (boss)" page. We should do the same for party members/playable characters. These pages would basically be the same as job pages. "Cloud (VII Remake party member)" should be good enough.

Similarly, I'd like to see us always split gameplay from Location pages if they appear in two games. The new page would include a list of locations (with unique names) and gameplay interactable things, maps and layouts of the areas, and lists of everything, NPCs, etc.. I think it's really important we have a list of locations and their names specific for each game because it's immensely useful for telling users where things are located. Esthar has a ton of places called "Esthar- City", but it'd be great to refer to a specific screen as "Y-Junction (East)" and have an article to tell the reader what that means.

Although Honey Bee Inn is also a special case where the two locations are nothing alike other than their small place in the story. I think the main Honey Bee Inn article can still hold most of the non-gameplay info though. JBed (talk) 14:01, March 23, 2020 (UTC)

The only problem with that is that it could read awkwardly, and take one of the experience in a way to read "In FFVII"/"In FFVIIR". Like you said, because the Compilation is canon to both, splitting the content is not really an option.

I'd agree with ditching the /gameplay subpages in favor of pages for party members, and I actually thought about adopting the "boss page" name idea. The big problem I have with it now is that "party member" is too ambiguous a tag name, and misidentifies the scope of the article. "Cloud (Final Fantasy VII party member)" could imply that the article is about all aspects of Cloud, including story and development info, when it's only about gameplay. My big concern is readers seeing "Cloud Strife" and "Cloud Strife (VII Remake party member)" and not knowing where to go to find what they need. Though I still think the structure is what we should aim for, a better tag would be needed, probably.

On splitting gameplay for locations, it depends how much content there will be after the quest pages for all games exist. I'm not really sure how I'd go about splitting them, but I'm not against the idea.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 15:47, March 23, 2020 (UTC)

I'm kind of feeling having something like a "History" section for the general timeline of events, and then separate sections for every title that tells the story as it is told--with these sections being able to make reference to things like optional scenes (Edit: Although I guess some remakes and adaptations do remain almost identical. gdi. well the Remake is giving us only a fraction of the original VII so it won't look so repetitive at this point).

I think "party member" is clear enough. I get where you're coming from, but you could equally imagine "Necron (boss)" used "boss" as a clarifying tag and was just for Necron as a whole. We wouldn't be using a tag as specific as "party member" tag of all things if we didn't have to! The intro and infobox will make it clear, and if not we can always add a notice. In TRPGs we have the word "unit".

The good thing about Quest pages is they offer a linear perspective. But if someone's got the key to Sector 5 and is returning to Midgar, they'll want to know about the items they missed in the guest room in Aeris's house. Many places on the wiki we refer to sub-locats/zones, and so we need a game-specific place to list those zones. We currently have a map on Mako Reactor 1 that only makes sense in regards to FFVII--VIIRemake will have different layout and maps. Shinra Manor's (at least) three iterations are incompatible. JBed (talk) 18:19, March 23, 2020 (UTC)

Regarding characters: I'm really inclined to agree. I'm still just anxious that the name could be confusing to those unfamiliar with our page naming structure or with the term "party member". If I was a newbie getting into the game, I'd probably be confused also.

But if we assume that article titles work with the structure "<primary thing> (<added context>)", then I wonder if we can't just do Cloud (Final Fantasy VII gameplay). "Cloud gameplay (Final Fantasy VII)". Admittedly, it's a little awkward next to boss battles, but I can't think of a less clumsy title that doesn't have the same ambiguity issue.

Agreed mostly on the rest... "Story" to "History" wouldn't be a bad idea, just not sure how to then fit the events per game in a way that avoids repetition or etc.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 19:50, March 23, 2020 (UTC)

My reasons against "gameplay" is that "gameplay" entails more than just being a party member, and I don't think that being a boss in a game is that related to being a party member in that game (besides sometimes using the name variable). The reason we need these extra pages is because of all the related details associated with being a party member we need to cover. Being able to just type [[Cloud (Final Fantasy VII party member)|]] really makes a lot of sense to me. If we call these pages "gameplay" then we'll probably feel the need to include a h2 for the boss fight. So what for Dagger? I would think the page would be named "Dagger gameplay", but then do we cover the boss battle called Garnet? JBed (talk) 20:55, March 23, 2020 (UTC)

That's a really good point that I hadn't thought of. In that case, I lean towards "Cloud (Final Fantasy VII party member)" and we'd just have to eat the fact that we'd need to put {{for}} at the top.

I think we should also make a separate infobox like "infobox party member", which contains a link for "Character information". I don't know if you have any ideas on that.

I think the user experience wouldn't be great, but I can't really think of a better name that's less ambiguous and achieves the intended goal.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 21:08, March 23, 2020 (UTC)

Writing the context in the story etc sections ("In Final Fantasy VII he bla bla, but in the Remake he instead...") seems unavoidable sometimes and less confusing than notes. It's not pretty, but not that disruptive to a reading experience as people will glance over that particular wording.
We could keep the story sections quite summarized, and then in "Behind the scenes" add some "Story differences between versions" sections, and explain more at length there if some major differences would benefit from being elaborated upon further (although it could encourage newbie editors to add these to everything for irrelevant stuff, like in the original Aerith's umbrella was purple but now it's red...)
It's good to have a plan going forward, but we won't know precisely how it will look like before we actually start to do it.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 21:38, March 23, 2020 (UTC)

I've made an example party member page. Similar to existing Gameplay, but with added infobox. Wasn't sure about including {{for}}, but can do. Any comments on this before I do it for the other FFVII pages? I think we can focus on VII while Remake is still out, and slowly creep it in for other games.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 19:43, March 25, 2020 (UTC)

Do the full weapon list and Limit Break list still need to be behind {{See|}} if Tifa has her own dedicated party member page now? I think they could fit there.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 20:18, March 25, 2020 (UTC)

The article should be probably state what the character comes equipped with. I'm not sure about the "Battle" h2. I think most of its contents can just be h2s. There are some games where you can lose HP and contract statuses outside of battle, there are some abilities used outside of battle, etc.. But most of the Battle h2's contents is what defines what a party memberi s anyway. JBed (talk) 20:24, March 25, 2020 (UTC)

A section for relevant scenes might be useful. You already have "as a party leader", but both the Premium Heart (the bonus scene) and Final Heaven require her in the party. Also parts of the game they have to be in the party (although for Tifa that's just fixed-party moments). JBed (talk) 20:28, March 25, 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure about including the full weapon list and Limit Break list on the party member pages if we can link to an existing page. Seems redundant, and I don't think relying on modules to transclude data like we've done for other games is the best solution. It's not a bad idea though. Worth trying.

Agreed that it should include starting equipment (the "Equipment" section is best for that), and that "Battle" isn't a great h2 name. Moving the h3s to standard h2s makes sense, but it still seems logical to group that info together. Would either need a better h2 name, or to just ditch the h2 entirely.

Relevant scenes/interactions is definitely not a bad idea, I'm just not sure what I'd name the section. It could probably be grouped with the date mechanics scene.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 20:55, March 25, 2020 (UTC)

UPDATE: I've now included the information has mentioned above, and organized it into a coherent layout. Couldn't think of a better name other than "Battle", but that's for the characters' stats in combat, more or less. "Quests" comprises times when the character joins/leaves the party, or when they're actually the party leader. "Interactions" covers unique scenes where the character is a member, as well as date mechanics. I can't think of how including full weapons/limit info would fit without straight up duplicating content, so for now the links will stay.

I think this layout and setup can be used for other games too, but VII Remake when it launches will take up most of my time, so I'll only implement it for FFVII characters for now. Let me know if there are any comments, otherwise I'll just make the pages for the rest of these tomorrow.

Partly related, but should there be pages for the characters' Limit abilities, or at least for their final Limits so we can include info on how to get the item?-- Technobliterator ^T_C 08:12, March 29, 2020 (UTC)

I think every character's final Limit has a parent page (Cosmo Memory (ability) etc) that should have all info about them, besides maybe Cait Sith, though his ToyBox surely is among the most complex... So they are at least "discoverable" via google pretty well. But the Limit page is really big! In later games everyone has a different Limit Break command (Renzokuken/Dyne/Swordplay) so it's easy to make a separate page for everyone.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 02:52, March 30, 2020 (UTC)

Guys, I know we're still scrambling and this is only going to throw gas on the fire, but I propose when there are significant differences to something within a page that we use sections. I checked the Mako Reactor 1 page and it's a pain to parse. If we separate it with h2 headings for each game, and keep everything organized under those headings, that will do a lot to reduce confusion, AND will make it easier for people to get to what they want with the navigation. I also propose that for minor differences, it can just be handled as an inline thing, but where there are major story additions or changes, those should really go under subheadings for each game, too. The goal of this should be to keep what's mostly the same in one spot to avoid doubling our work, while also separating things out clearly when the deviations are too much to note. Using the headings is an easy indicator for the casual observer when there are significant changes, and for the merged sections, it should be clear enough that it's talking about both without being explicit. Unrelated, do we need to throw templates together real quick? I see we're still using static tables on the enemy pages so far. Let me whip something up! It's been a while! :) Bluestarultor ^BSA 02:23, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

UPDATE: Ta-da~! https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Template:VII_Remake_Enemy_Stats Dang that felt good! XD Bluestarultor ^BSA 06:22, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

This forum was made back before I knew the extent of the differences for the Remake, since it was as-yet unreleased.

For Story: agreed completely separate sections for story content is ideal, though I'm not convinced of making them a different h2. A lot of the events in the Remake before the Mako Reactor 1 bombing are still canon to both games, and a lot of the detail added by VII Remake does not contradict the original. However, right around when FFVII starts, is when events do contradict the original, and there is divergence. Therefore, I'd just separate events into "Before Mako Reactor 1 Bombing", and "Original continuity", and "Remake continuity", since REDACTED SPOILER(the different Remake continuity still technically occurs after the original continuity), this should be the best way to organize it.

For Geography, one section is ideal, and VII Remake can take precedence, given that canonically the VII Remake locations is how they actually are without all the hardware limitations or extra expansion and etc. It can have a paragraph at most to explain differences in layout between games. This is my thinking right now. I will demo this at some point, but I'm going through quest pages right now, followed by ability/weapon pages, and then locations and all lore are the last thing I'll get to. So someone else is free to come up with something in the meantime.

Likewise, for enemy pages: thanks for providing the enemy infobox! I was going to make one based on what we have from the in-game Battle Intel (we use the style at Template:Infobox enemy stats FFVII btw though this style is fine for this game and a bot can rename anyway), but I'm busy on quest pages, and enemy pages are really low priority for me. If someone wants to get to them before I do, that's fine. The only enemy pages we have were written when the demo was out, and there wasn't a lot of info.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 07:06, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a need for the character stat info? I was able to isolate those images as well. I know the quality isn't great at full size (PS4 Share to Twitter is not a gentle process), but I was able to get everything a consistent size (66x66 px) and if you need the stats added to the template, I can do that easily now that I'm back in the swing of it. Bluestarultor ^BSA 08:11, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

Sure, that'd be useful. The Category:Party member gameplay in Final Fantasy VII Remake pages are where that info goes, and are on the list to fill out once I finish the quest pages-- but you're more than welcome to add to them before I get there. Also, if you can provide screenshots (thanks for the element icons btw, I remember when writing that page I really wish I had them!), images and content for a Menu (VII Remake) page would be great. We encourage a standardized file naming scheme (i.e. "Tifa bartending from FFVII Remake.png"), but it's not enforced yet, and eventually all images will be renamed with the bot anyway.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 08:23, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

I'll keep it in mind for future uploads. Everything I added so far uses a consistent naming scheme, which should make converting easier. I think I, in my tiredness, didn't say what I actually meant. I don't have stat info; just icons, but I uploaded them and added them to the enemy stats template. I also see there's a new HTML-based template format, but the conversion tool leaves much to be desired and TBH, I really don't want to dive into learning a whole new format to migrate it after spending so much time getting it to look nice the old way, first thing doing a serious edit after ages. I'll let someone with more expertise do the conversion, no offense. I really miss the days when I would've been on top of something like that and helping innovate, TBH. For now, what I really am most concerned with it that nobody takes exception to the parameters. If you could check them and make sure they fit within current standards, and make any necessary changes, that, I think, would at least ensure I contributed something meaningful. I'm unfortunately nowhere in the game yet and still need to get out of Reactor 1. I took the week off specifically to play it and want to get to doing that, but once I get Assess, I can at least fill in some elemental info. :) Bluestarultor ^BSA 16:55, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

No worries! The parameters look good. I just brought the names in-line with other templates and renamed to Template:Infobox enemy stats FFVIIR, and I think this is good for now.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 20:03, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I went in to link the stat names to their pages and while I was looking to see what the parameter names changed to, I noticed "silence" was used for both the status and what I took to be the damage result of silence attacks (similar to Sleep in the original for Palmer). Are these values actually linked? Or was I just way off in what that was for? Or is it smart enough to know to pull the values in order? Let me know. If needed, I'll peek at what we did for the naming in the original game template and copy it. Bluestarultor ^BSA 20:39, April 13, 2020 (UTC)

Now the game's come out, are we still set on merging the VII and VII Remake sections? I have my own thoughts about what's going on, but what exactly they're doing with Remake is very much unknown, and I think that's precisely why we can't merge the stories together.

Barret's page currently talk about all the Whisper and dimension stuff, how Aerith says Sephiroth is the true planet, and then how in Kalm Cloud explains the plot.

This isn't useful to FFVII players or Remake players. They did say they plan to follow most of the plot of VII's story, but the events of VII in Shinra Building are vastly different. And also I think it's obvious that the purpose of the whispers is to keep the plot of Remake on track with the plot of the original--and the writers knew the players of the original would notice this--so no longer having the lot of the original on the page loses out that context. And finally, the resolution of that whole meta-narrative is that they won't be bound by the original from hereon.

Also Biggs is fucking alive. JBed (talk) 21:41, April 30, 2020 (UTC)