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)