Talk:Phantasy Star Online

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Phantasy Star Online/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Red Phoenix (talk · contribs) 12:45, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I've got dibs on this one. This is one of my absolute favorite Sega games of all time and an article I had my eyes on for quite a while. I'll be glad to review it in the next day or so. Red Phoenix ^talk 12:45, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for picking this up. Yea this article just needed to get done. There are lots of development interviews in Dreamcast Magazine from Japan that I did not have time to translate, perhaps one day. There are bound to be plenty of grammatical/spelling errors in this one. TarkusAB^talk 13:34, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

One outstanding thing I was not able to determine was whether the free internet access provided by Okawa was provided with the system or the game. The source I had said both. Would appreciate any knowledge you may have to clear that up. TarkusAB^talk 14:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

All right, let's get started.

Overall

• As I read the prose, I have a very strong sense that this article needs a good copyedit from someone who is very experienced - I see all sorts of little things that I just don't get the sense of professional writing (no offense intended, I have the same problem in my own article writing a lot). I'll admit I'm not that person, and honestly I would tell you I feel strongly enough about it that I do consider it a barrier at this point. You will want to find someone to copyedit the article. I will personally recommend Popcornduff, as he's a great copyeditor, but I've invoked his name a lot in the last month and I'm not 100% sure he has time. There are others out there as well who could help.

Lead

• I would combine the second and third paragraphs, as they basically share the same main concept.
  • Done

Gameplay

• Players can also exchange guild cards so they exchange private messages - I think you're missing a word here?
  • Done
• Be careful about using "Players" to start two sentences in a row, as in the third paragraph. Sentence fluency helps to make prose engaging.
  • Done
• I'd combine the last paragraph into the one before it; it's two sentences and goes right along with what's above it.
  • Done

Plot

• The plot is pretty short, which I'm okay with; I always disliked long plot summaries of video games. That being said, is it worth mentioning Red Ring Rico and that there are offline quest storylines in the plot? In the actual gameplay itself, those would seem to be important aspects.

Development

• "Internet is actually a proper term and needs to be capitalized.
  • Discussed below
• These network experiments mutated into a game of their own - Questionable verb choice. I'd change it, per WP:ELEVAR; it may be a bit too elegant for the purpose it's serving here.
  • Fixed
• Third paragraph of "Concept" has "Naka was also" followed by "He was also". Repetitive use of "also" in two straight sentences is in need of attention for sentence fluency.
  • Fixed
• Sonic Team would not be able to keep the game interesting for long enough - Long enough for what?
  • Fixed
• Naka had always wanted to develop a multiplayer Phantasy Star game, but the Sega Saturn hardware did not allow for it. The Dreamcast, however, could. - I have a couple of issues here. Firstly, "always wanted" can't be the case if we're then talking about just Saturn hardware since he was with Sega a lot longer than that, even if those were Naka's words, so I would reword. The last sentence also reads a little awkwardly, certainly impactful but maybe unnecessarily so. Here's my suggested revision for you: "Naka had wanted to develop a multiplayer Phantasy Star game. While the Sega Saturn would not allow for such a game, the Dreamcast hardware was capable."
  • Fixed
• Link Sega Saturn when it appears in Concept, not later in Online functionality.
  • Fixed
• They considered Italian and Portuguese, but it would take too much time to implement. - Awkwardly worded due to English passive voice, be more direct that they decided against it due to time constraints.
  • Comment - That isn't passive voice. Popcornduff (talk) 13:05, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
    • Call it what you will, but it's still not professional wording and should be more direct. Red Phoenix ^talk 15:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
• "Wrapping production" is an awkward title for a subsection.
  • Maybe Ending production is better, not sure what else to call it
• A beta version given to journalists had a player-versus-player mode, but this was omitted as it would affect game balance and distracted from the cooperative focus. Also, as the console-playing audience was younger than the PC audience, Naka did not want to include the violent player-versus-player aspects. - Quite awkward. I would try and combine these two sentences and remove the repetitive use of "player-versus-player".
  • Fixed

I'll start there for now and come back to this review later. I will acknowledge at this point that you've done a nice job with this article, turning it from crap to very good in a short amount of time. Red Phoenix ^talk 02:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

OK thanks. I will get started making changes. I agree on the need for copy edits, specifically the development through release sections. I never did a copy edit myself, so I'm going to do that as well as seek out experience from someone else. @Popcornduff: has done some CE for this article already, but perhaps he is willing to do more. If not I can seek out the GOCE for assistance. TarkusAB^talk 12:59, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll do a pass at some point. (Note: I'll destroy my Wikipedia account before I consider internet a proper noun.) Popcornduff (talk) 13:03, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I actually feel the same way myself personally, but alas, we even have an article on the capitalization of "Internet", believe it or not. Red Phoenix ^talk 15:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I do indeed know about that article. It's not a good article.

Wikipedia is actually one of the last places that prefers to capitalise internet. This, imo, is a symptom of Wikipedia being run by a bunch of middle-aged hobbyists stuck in the past in more ways than one - it is the only place on the internet I have ever been lectured to by retired members of the territorial army - but that's by the by. Popcornduff (talk) 16:03, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Ha ha, well you will be glad to know I'm not a middle-aged hobbyist, and personally have no preference but understand we should be consistent. It's quite possible this may be worth a discussion somewhere such as the village pump since even the aforementioned article indicates a shift in how we spell out the term. It may be worth a discussion for the MOS. Red Phoenix ^talk 19:52, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: Still working through my copyedit, but I notice there's nothing about the music in the article. Is there anything out there about it we can use? I recall this game having a distinctive soundtrack. Popcornduff (talk) 07:21, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I think so. I will look into it. TarkusAB^talk 12:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I went through all the DC Mag Japanese interviews, and nothing on the music. They were much more concerned about the "network RPG" gameplay, characters, and graphics. They interviewed quite a few people but no composers. TarkusAB^talk 11:46, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

• Another comment: I think the gameplay section is lacking a few details. What about the rhythmic, three-strike, pow-pow-pow combat? Popcornduff (talk) 07:58, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Was that only for warrior classes? Did other classes have similar rhythmic attacking? I don't think forces did. TarkusAB^talk 12:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

It was for all character types for all kinds of attacks. The exception you're thinking of is for casting spells, which didn't use the rhythm system. Forces using guns and hitting things with staffs or whatever still used the rhythm. Popcornduff (talk) 12:11, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

• Follow-up July 22: I think everything has been followed up on except (1) the plot, which I need to research on cuz I'm not super familiar with the plot details and Red Ring Rico (If you have an idea of what to right, just add it in, will save me some time) and (2) the internet capitalization. Can we just say WP:IGNORE here because it sounds like we all think the capitalization rule is silly? TarkusAB^talk 16:26, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh and Popcornduff brought up some stuff too which might take me a bit of time to work on. TarkusAB^talk 16:44, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Since Popcornduff is working on the prose, I'll go ahead and leave prose concerns for the moment. A few boxes I'll note as checked:

•  Done Little risk of copyright violation per the Copyvio Detector
•  Done Checklinks shows all links are in good condition, no link rot.

Images

• File:Phantasy Star Online JP cover.jpg -- This needs a better fair use rationale; specifically the fields for NFCC #1 and #2 need to be replaced with something other than N/A. Even in common use screenshots, we need to be able to demonstrate fully why each image meets the WP:NFCC
  • Added more details
• File:Phantasy Star Online screenshot.png -- Same issue as above
  • Added more details
• File:Yuji Naka - Magic - Monaco - 2015-03-21- P1030036 (cropped again).jpg -- Looks good, is used in a lot of places.
• File:Dreamcast-Console-Set.jpg -- An Evan-Amos work, he's known for his quality free images. This one is good.
• File:GameCube online setup.png -- The right boxes are checked here, so this is good.
• File:KEN00140 (37230358692) (cropped).jpg -- Free use, also looks good.

References

• Need to fix any references that are just URLs, like #3.
  • Fixed, for some of those IGN pages, there is not date.
    • Fair enough, there may not be and that's okay.
• It's my personal recommendation that you fill in publishers for the video game websites wherever you can, especially if you want to take this to FA eventually as FA reviewers aren't necessarily knowledgeable about the reliability of video game sources. That being said, I don't consider it a barrier to GA, just something I think you should consider.
  • I added a few publishers, I don't know them all. I have no plans to take to FA right now.
    • That's fair enough. Just something to keep in mind in the future.
• On the same note as above, this one does need attention for GA: Make sure you're using consistent fields in your reference templates. For instance, IGN is italicized in some but not others. That's because in some templates IGN is listed as a website, and in others it's a publisher. Usually we list Ziff Davis as the publisher, same with 1UP.com and a few others.
  • Fixed this
• Check some of your archive links; #64 says it's archived but there is no archive link. There is one when I explore the ref, but I think you have a bad parameter keeping it from displaying.
  • I fixed 64. Not sure what other one you are talking about
    • I wasn't; what I meant was there was an archive url when I explored the ref's source code and its template parameters in VisualEditor mode, but it wasn't generating properly. Sorry for the confusion.
• Source reliability does check out and looks good. Just consider what's above.

I will return to the prose after the copyedit. Red Phoenix ^talk 21:28, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

• OK, that's my copyedit done, more or less. Might continue to tweak things but the bulk of it is finished. I'm not super-happy with the short "Ending production" section but don't see an obvious way to merge the details into other sections - yet. TarkusAB, nice job putting this page together - I remember the state it was in before your work, and it wasn't pretty. Satisfying to see it so much improved. Popcornduff (talk) 09:50, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, I truly appreciate you taking the time. I'll see what I can do about that section because I don't like it either. TarkusAB^talk 12:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll try and come back to this in the next day or so. I appreciate your patience. In the meantime, there's still work to be done on images and references. Red Phoenix ^talk 13:37, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

No problem. Yea there is still stuff I need to work on. I don't mind taking this review slow if you don't either. TarkusAB^talk 14:01, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

I think I'm up to date on all the follow-up. TarkusAB^talk 14:07, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Looks good so far, TarkusAB. Sorry I have been away; long story short, I'm starting a new job this week so it's thrown off my ability to be here. I will work on the final prose review here shortly, and I can agree to WP:IAR on "internet" - it's not something I feel strongly about personally, anyway. Red Phoenix ^talk 16:36, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I did some more work to fix some of the remaining prose issues and Popcornduff gave it some more touchup. I would personally argue that the plot is now too short to warrant a full section, but I won't consider it a GA barrier. I'm now ready to pass this article. Good work! Red Phoenix ^talk 23:28, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, if others think the Plot section is too short, I'd be content to remove it entirely. We briefly cover the plot under Gameplay with "Players take on the role of adventurers sent to explore Ragol, an uncharted planet", and mention that it's unrelated to other Phantasy Star games under Development. Plot really isn't a central part of the game and given little attention by sources. No use covering it just for the sake of it. Popcornduff (talk) 04:05, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Polygon articles

New in-depth Polygon developer interviews. Putting these here as they should be dissected someday:

• Mielke, James (26 July 2020). "Yuji Naka looks back at Phantasy Star Online, 20 years later". Polygon.
• Mielke, James (2 August 2020). "Phantasy Star Online's director talks Diablo influences, cut features, and Christmas Nights". Polygon.
• Mielke, James (9 August 2020). "Phantasy Star Online's music has defined the series for 20 years". Polygon.
• Mielke, James (16 August 2020). "Phantasy Star Online devs on the story, the graphics, and the angry fans that used to call the office". Polygon.
• Mielke, James (23 August 2020). "Phantasy Star Online programmers on breaking new ground and their Diablo-style isometric prototype". Polygon.

TarkusAB^talk/contrib 11:52, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

PSOLoad sources

Here are some sources I found about PSOLoad:

• https://events.ccc.de/congress/2004/fahrplan/files/307-gamecube-hacking-slides.pdf
• https://media.ccc.de/v/208_Gamecube_Hacking#t=1 (talk that used the above slides, slides don't seem to be in the video)
• https://wololo.net/2012/11/12/sega-dreamcast-how-its-security-works-and-how-it-was-hacked (not reliable, but may still be useful to find other stuff)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxjl_kD3imQ (not sure if this is secondary or tertiary)

Is PSOLoad now notable enough to include? Hallowizer (talk) 03:19, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

None of those are reliable sources. See WP:VG/RS TarkusAB^talk/contrib 07:50, 5 October 2021 (UTC)