Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Adventure games/Archive 1

I've copied this from the Sierra On-Line talk page as I think it's relevant to our current task, rewriting this page.

Considering the poor quality of the article in its current state, I think it would be useful to draw up a list of things that can be done with it before we try to improve it from Start-Class (and this is one company whose history implies that it deserves much more than a drawn-out, shabby article with little encyclopedic content). I'm not sure if I'll start going through with the changes anytime soon, but I suppose they could be useful, especially if another editor plans to work on the article. I've already moved the contents of the former "Titles" section to List of Sierra Entertainment video games; really, this article is long enough without a colossal listing of published games. I went ahead and made several changes to that list as well; some dates may still be inaccurate (the info in various sources varies), but I think it's a bit closer to the truth, in any case. So, here we go: 1. Change the introductory paragraph. Minor modifications needed; above all, I believe a well-constructed encyclopedic entry should begin with "Sierra Entertainment is" (minus the italics). The four studios are likely to be better off mentioned in the main article, but I suppose they can stay here as well. 2. Change the tone of the article, eliminate peacock terms. Really, this is the article's biggest and most obvious problem. It's riddled with sentences and expressions that read more like advertisements or an informal account of the company's history. Examples include (problematic sections bolded by me): * "Ken (as so many other people who saw the game) was fascinated with it." * Referring to individuals mentioned throughout by name (Ken, Roberta etc.) * "She realized that this medium had the possibilities to do even more than presenting text descriptions on the screen. Since modern computers could display graphics, instead of telling the player “You are standing in front of a house” a picture of the house could be displayed on the screen. The games could use better plots too, making them even more interesting to play." * "Roberta sat down in front of the kitchen table and started to write down her ideas." – one of the many sentences that do not befit an article in an encyclopedia * "Three weeks later she presented to Ken the script of a computer game called Mystery House, an idea she had developed during the previous days, in between watching the kids (D.J. was seven at the time and Chris was only one year old) and doing other everyday household stuff." * "But who?" * "(...) Roberta's mother Nova, who was a good oil painter." * "They thought that if they could just write games popular enough to earn them about $40,000 a year, they could move out of Los Angeles in a few years and live in a “log cabin in the woods”, working together at home, making computer games and raising their children in a peaceful and beautiful environment close to nature instead of the big and busy city of L.A. They had no idea that this humble dream would be a heavy understatement to what was actually going to happen to them in the following years." * "The graphics, although consisting only of crude line drawings, monochrome and motionless, was something previously unseen in an computer game, and people loved it." – Wikipedia:Words to avoid, Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words * "Mystery House was the first computer game to have graphics, and as such is considered a classic game and a landmark achievement in computer gaming history." – the first, if I'm not mistaken, is incorrect, though it was the first adventure game with graphics. The second is self-explanatory, see above I could go on, but there are just too many other examples; after all, I only covered the first couple of paragraphs here. 1. Add captions to images. 2. Format. There are way too many sections that need to be merged and content that needs to be removed (non-notable games; overly extensive references to events involving parent companies; quite hilarious reference to TalkSpot without any mention of why this should be considered important to the history of Sierra) All in all, this article should be thoroughly edited, if not completely rewritten. If anyone has any other suggestions, I and many other Wikipedians would be very happy to hear them. As I mentioned, the Sierra of old deserves better than a rather mediocre article (not to disrespect the original editor or editors, who must have put in a lot of hard work to write all this). Cromag 22:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC) [edit] Too long article This article is way too long. For people who look for key information about sierra games (what it is/has been), it's a job to find it here. What about moving the history to a "history about sierra games" page and simply keep a small summary of it in this page? Pharaohmø 11:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC

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   Frankly, I'd opt for simply rewriting large sections of this article, as I stated above. History of Sierra Entertainment might be an interesting page to create, but I don't think any other video game company has a separate article on its history. Besides, even if one were to move all the content there, it still wouldn't change the fact that the article is, simply put, bad. Still, I wholly agree with the suggestion to keep it relatively short and sweet in this article (no year-by-year analyses!) and eliminate the unnecessary or superfluous sentences. I plan to work on this in June, after my exams. Cromag 02:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

       One problem with this article is that I believe the editor(s) in question wanted to describe every single aspect of Sierra's history, including every game released by the company, no matter how notable or innovative (or not). There's too much information for the average reader/Wikipedian; heck, there's too much even for someone interested in what things looked like at Sierra in its almost three-decade history. Cromag 03:00, 11 May 2007 (UTC)